This blog began when I chronicled a 3-week family vacation pulling our travel trailer from Texas to Northern California. Packed in with our five unschooled children like sardines in a can, we made it to California without resorting to cannibalism. In fact, we had a great time! So the chronicle continues... no longer on vacation but still groovin' on a great journey.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cheep cheep cheep cheep entertainment

After a fitful night's rest with Camille, Jasper, and Schnitzel in bed with me, Jules came in around 4:30 claiming it was hot in his room and he wanted to sleep in mine. I suspect it had more to do with the scary stories he was reading at bedtime...Anyway, so I got up to get him situated on the couch at the foot of my bed. Just as I settled back down, my back started hurting. Why? No idea. I am having the dreaded aches and pains.....I finally drifted back to sleep for about ten minutes. Then Jasper woke up saying he had to pee. He almost made it. I spent the next ten minutes trying to dig up clean underwear for him. I am ashamed to say it, but most of them are still in the trailer from our weekend at the beach :). FINALLY, back in bed, Jasper settled back down...the Advil starting to work on my back and RIIIINNNGGG!!!! The *&&^! phone! Can you believe it? 5:50 am in the morning. Ellie is at camp so I about killed myself getting to the phone. Honestly, the only thing I could think of was that she was sick or something. We do not have a phone in our room so I stumbled through the house to pick it up just before the answering machine kicked in.

"Hello?" I said.

"Mrs. Pavliska?" said a young male voice. Sounded like a camp counselor to me. What could be wrong?

"Yes," I said, with my mind racing.

"This is the post office in The Small Town Next to Your Small Town," the voice said.

So what? What did he want? My mind was a mess.

"Your chicks are here. They'll be at your post office at 8:00."

This was not a prank. We were, indeed, expecting live chicks to come in the mail.

He hung up. Was he like totally laughing his rear off with his buddies at the post office? Why OH WHY, couldn't my post office just have called me at 8:00, when the chicks arrived? Wouldn't that have been better? Wouldn't it have made like a zillion times more sense? I can only imagine that the kid at the post office had a mean streak.

Jasper, of course, heard the phone and was up watching the yoga lady on television. I tried to go back to bed, but then Schnitzel wanted out, then Camille got up.....you get the idea.

At 7:30 I left to go get the chicks. I woke Joel and told him to get their area ready, complete with heat lamp and food, water, etc. Yes, yes, yes, we should have done this sooner. But we are what we are, and what we are is a big old sloppy group of procrastinators.

We heard the chicks peeping as soon as we walked into the post office. There was much fighting in the backseat on the way home between Camille and Jasper, both of whom wanted to hold the box. They could see the fuzzy little critters through the air holes. Very adorable.

When we got home we found Joel still rinsing out waterers and feeders....the chicks sat peeping in their box while we got everything ready. I put a little bit of sugar in their water, mixed grit and feed for the feeder, put the fluff in the splashy pool we were using for a brooder and covered it with paper towels so they wouldn't get spindle-legged (I just read a chicken book)...and got ready to set up their heat lamp. It was broken, of course. I called Jeff who led me on a wild goose chase through the garage looking for one that he "thought we had..." The end result of this was a trip to Tractor Supply to get a heat lamp. Whew! Finally, by 10:00 - all the chicks were settled in.

In the chicken book, there was a section about what to look for in your chicks when they arrive. Something called "pasty butt" was listed. Sounds attractive, right? If a chick were to have pasty butt, you would have to remove it or their little bottoms could become obstructed and they wouldn't be able to poop. Guess what? One of the little stinkers had pasty butt. So I have two sunburned calves and one pasty-butt chick. I had to scrape it off and it was really stuck on. I had to moisten it, first. He still isn't looking as good as the other chicks. I am not the kind of person who does this sort of thing easily.

I am having a hell of a time keeping Camille off of the chicks.

Because I don't have enough to do, I have also been collecting some items for two Darfuri families who have settled in San Antonio. Tomorrow morning at 7:00 I have to take it to a friend who will deliver it...

Well, I have a lot more to say but it is late and I am tired and in two days Jeff comes home and then in one more, Ellie does! There is light at the end of my pasty butt tunnel....